


Like Flowers Aflame

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Mild Blood, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25362481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: “I took your kill.” He almost starts when she calls to him, turns her head, and meets his gaze across the distance between them, still poised as he is on the wide steps. He questions which strikes him first: her dark eyes, ringed by a fire all their own, or the mild smile playing about her lips. She shrugs a shoulder. “Sorry.”
Relationships: Hien Rijin & Warrior of Light, Hien Rijin/Warrior of Light
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Like Flowers Aflame

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Aaaaand another one finished. Kinda sorta on a roll, I guess. These two serve as good inspiration. Takes place at the very end of Stormblood, post-Zenos/Shinryu battle. Beware a few pre-relationship feels lol; these kids are slow-burners, apparently. Feedback is appreciated. Enjoy!

It is pandemonium, still, throughout the city and beyond its walls. Soldiers, leaders, resistance volunteers; dozens cross his path without him once being able to put a name to a mien. ‘Tis little surprise; he and his are the foreigners here, and there is no one who would recognize his face anymore than he would theirs. There are exceptions, of course, in a precious few, but they are justifiably occupied with the small matter of their nation’s new freedom.

He knows the feeling well. He should be with his own, miles away across the seas. And yet...

Lyse was a beacon in red, waving them down in the crowd. _“_ _I s_ _aw her earlier,”_ she said, _“_ _helping the other healers. Then I heard she went up top.”_ The young woman pointed above her head, and he followed her finger to the top levels of the Ala Mhigan palace, gleaming white and smoky gray against the blue, early evening sky.

“ _For what reason?”_ Yugiri asked. Lyse shrugged.

“ _Something about sussing out the aether in the atmosphere? Making sure that primal doesn’t show back up, presumably. We’ve already removed Zenos’ body. Guess it’s a precaution.”_

That was all he needed to hear.

“ _My lord, where are you going?"_ Yugiri called to his back. Hien looked back over his shoulder, offering a bracing grin.

“ _To retrieve our hero, of course.”_ And before anyone could respond, he rallied himself and disappeared back into the bedlam.

He should be with his people now, or at least crossing those great waters to return to them. And he will be, come the definitive end to this day of revolution. But first...

The Gyr Abanian sun begins its descent in earnest as he traverses the residents’ quarters and approaches the palace. It paints everything in shades of orange and gold, from the stone buildings to the cargo wagons to the dented armor of Garlean machina and the torn uniforms of Alliance soldiers. For a moment, one can almost ignore the carnage of the day, so effective the dusk is at casting it all in gilded hues. It makes him yearn for the sight of the Ruby Sea at such a time, when the waters are burnished with a fire to rival Hell’s Lid.

How surprised he is, then, when he enters the palace under cover of chaos, climbs the staircase, and steps foot onto the shore of another kind of sea entirely.

There is a garden aflame. Hundreds, thousands of them, pink and red and white blossoms swaying as if from the tips of candle wicks under a breeze that teases his cheeks and the white fur lining his collar. Water gleams in golden pools bordered by white marble and teeming with green leaves and lotus.

It is beautiful, a landscape painting turned reality, and made a portrait by the lone Raen woman standing at its center, still as a sculpture.

 _But first,_ _I wish to find her_ _._ _See her, speak with her. J_ _ust for a moment._

What a ruler he is.

“I took your kill.” He almost starts when she calls to him, turns her head, and meets his gaze across the distance between them, still poised as he is on the wide steps. He questions which strikes him first: her dark eyes, ringed by a fire all their own, or the mild smile playing about her lips. Odzaya shrugs a shoulder. “Sorry.”

Hien blinks once, perhaps twice, before he bursts with a laugh.

“Aye! I suppose you did!” He approaches, his steps light, and stops several fulms away from where she stands bracketed by blossoms. “‘Tis fitting, I think.”

She looks surprised. “Truly?” Skepticism coats her gaze and tone as she turns in his direction.

“Truly,” Hien confirms, and crosses his arms, considering. “Zenos yae Galvus took much from me, certainly, but I am hardly the only one. Every Doman, every Ala Mhigan, every person who lost a home or a loved one or a livelihood to the Empire’s greed and his supposed ennui...they all deserved a chance at his head.” His gaze finds the place where the man in question’s body fell; his spattered blood still shines unnaturally jewel-like under the evening sun on the marble, as well as the petals of nearby flowers. Beautiful in the most morbid of ways. He grins suddenly, and looks at her. “My heart warms knowing that you thought of me, however.”

“A brief thought as he attempted to eat me, yes,” she admits, half sarcastic. Hien chuckles.

“Conqueror of Bardam’s Mettle and proud samurai I may be, but I know well that my skills paled in comparison to the man who felled my father, renowned swordsman that he was.” His grin widens. “I could not have hoped to defeat Zenos with my blade any more than a farmer with her hoe or a merchant with his silver tongue.”

“Give yourself a touch more credit, ‘Fire Walker’,” Odzaya replies, a thick purple brow lifting as she smirks. “You would at least do better than the merchant.” Hien guffaws, and her expression turns curious. “Speaking of silver tongues, whose was it that convinced you to come all the way up here?”

“I looking for you,” he answers easily, “of my own volition. Lyse mentioned something about your doing aether surveillance.”

Odzaya shakes her head. “Nothing so pedantic; I’ve not the tools on hand, nor the patience to use them. I was merely satisfying my own paranoia, more than anything.” She shifts back to her previous position of facing the far end of the gardens, and Hien follows without thinking, unwilling to resist his own curiosity. Soon, they both stand on the site of the Garleans’ last stand, where Zenos’ primal – Shinryu, he overheard it called – was previously bound. “Here is where it is most concentrated,” she tells him. “Feel it?”

He does, slightly. Sees it, as well. A strange thickness to the golden air as it enters his nostrils, barely visible undulations of sickly green at the edges of his periphery. A taste on the back of his tongue, just this side of bitter. He cannot hone in on any of it, distant sensations that they are and try as he might, but it makes his skin itch, his lungs reluctant to expand for what they may suck in. He looks beside him to find Odzaya’s eyes closed, her nose lightly wrinkled. Little doubt she senses more, for better or worse. “I will say,” he begins, crossing his arms, “I am glad we have not to compete with such creatures in Yanxia.”

“Mm,” Odzaya hums in agreement. “Be glad they’ve taken so much to these lands, instead.”

Hien thinks, then grins. “Ah, but then we have no Warrior of Light, either. Perhaps it would be a fair trade to deal with the occasional evil being knocking down our doors, to have one such as yourself in our regular company.”

She snorts once, and her smile, having disappeared beneath her concentration, returns. “Selfish.”

“At times,” he replies, and grins wider at her profile. “As we all are.”

They share silence, then, but for the wind through the blossoms and the gentle trickle of water. If he strains, he can hear the din down below, but up here, they seem separated from it all. It reminds him of the Azim Steppe’s plains, where malms of grasses stretch into infinity. Where one could seemingly chase the horizon forever and never encounter a soul.

He misses it. Here, however, with her, it feels as if a small fragment of the feeling has returned to him, even on this foreign soil located on the other side of the world. A power she gained as khagun, her connection to the land allowing her to carry its essence with her? Or merely a power she has all her own and over him, to conjure fond recollections of those days that were as fraught as they were halcyon?

“On the Steppe,” Odzaya begins suddenly. Hien mildly startles, thinking for one impossible moment that she read his mind. Then she continues. “There is a belief, that to interrupt a hunt is to interrupt fate. It is a sacred bond, that of two souls opposed. Predator and prey, seeker and sought. A matter to be left to the gods and the gods alone.” She opens her eyes and shrugs lightly. “A silly thing to consider perhaps, given what soil we are on and my extensive record of solving others’ problems. But…”

“But?” he encourages.

“But unlike those others, who gave me their blessing to act in their stead,” she says, and looks up at him, her sun-red gaze keen beneath the clean cut of her braided bangs, “you did not. And I recognized the desire in your eyes when we fought together in the Naadam and in Doma. To meet blades with those to stole so much from you. Regardless of your chance at victory.”

 _I see._ So that is her quandary, then, and why she has brought it back to the fore, despite his assurances. Hien sighs, thoughtful, and absently rests a hand on the hilt of his katana. “You are not wrong,” he answers honestly. “A large part of me longed to meet the man on the battlefield. Partly for my father, as well as my countrymen. But also for the sake of my own pride.” He huffs once in amusement at his own foolery, and his thumb plays with the catch, teasing a release of the blade. “Would I be able to hold my own against the warrior no other has? T’was a question I could not help but ask myself, however ridiculous.”

“I took away your opportunity to find out,” Odzaya says, her gaze somewhat regretful. Hien laughs aloud.

“Fret not, my friend! Regardless of our blades never meeting, I received my answer well from the ‘hunt’ I witnessed between the two of you.” He takes his gaze to the palace’s tower and surrounding spires, a broken beacon still smoking in the aftermath of their duel. “I could scarce imagine besting the man, let alone a beast of the magnitude he became.” He sobers, and his smile gentles. “No, I am content to have had you there in my stead, and the stead of all those who suffered from his deeds.” He faces her fully, then, and makes a show of bowing low. “Just as it was my honor to have you at my side during my country’s liberation, so it is my honor to have had my personal hopes met by your hand.” When he straightens, only to be met with her widened gaze, he grins broadly once more. “I daresay you are performing your role well. ‘Tis a khagun’s duty to fulfill the wishes of her people, no? And from what I’ve gathered since arriving here, you have many outside of the Steppe.”

To his surprise, the woman scoffs lightly. “As if they would know the title.”

“ _I_ am here, yes? And Lyse, as well as a contingent of the Xaela who chose to take the journey here in your name.” He thumps a fist to his armored chest in a warrior’s gesture. “We will inform them.”

Odzaya shakes her head emphatically. “Keep the knowledge to _yourselves_ , if you please. The last thing I need is more unnecessary ceremony. They already make too large a matter of me on this side of the world.”

“Can you blame them?”

“Yes,” she replies bluntly. “And you and Lyse for making it worse if you talk.” When he merely shrugs in answer, she narrows her eyes and angles herself toward him once more, her mouth pursed. He notes the medic’s uniform she wears, identical to the one worn by others he saw about the field but for the extra padding about her torso and arms, her armored boots, and the white and red cloak clasped at her neck. An attempt to make her abilities known, perhaps, while still blending in. Frankly, it fails. She still stands out like a lone lantern in the dark, not just for her scales or the vibrancy of her hair, but for the understated grace and power with which she carries herself. Like the blooms around them, he reckons, his eyes absently finding them; far hardier than they look, for all the epic battle that just took place here put them through. Even the ones that bore the brunt of Zenos’ bloody collapse have sprung back up in a way the warlord definitely did not, bruised but otherwise unscathed, and no less beautiful.

His gaze returns to her, and his smile, for a moment, turns inward. “Fitting,” he says again, this time as a murmur to himself.

“You said that,” Odzaya replies. He forgets about those keen horns sometimes; even Yugiri still blindsides him with all she manages to hear. “Still thinking about it?” she inquires.

“Just wondering what it is like to face a dragon in combat,” he says, in effort to cover his momentary daydreaming. To his surprise, she answers immediately.

“Hot and messy,” she states with all confidence, as if it is a knowledge she is intimately acquainted with. “And terrible-tasting. The blood gets everywhere.” She absently licks at the thick width of her bottom lip, and Hien splutters before he can control himself.

For every substantial thing he learns about her, like her gift for healing or her war-torn past or her casually rubbing shoulders with some of the most prominent figures on either continent, it is the smaller things – the fact that she sharpens the decorative edges of her staves and adores children and has apparently tasted dragon’s blood – that set his heart racing for reasons he is not quite yet willing to ponder.

“I suppose we’re done here. You did come to retrieve me, yes?” Odzaya makes the first move for the rooftop’s exit, her cloak billowing briefly outward with the abrupt spin of her heels. Hien comes back to himself with a small shake of the head, and she lifts a brow. “Are you alright?”

“Aye,” he says, pasting an easygoing smile on his lips. “Perhaps it is the aether, along with the hectic events of the day. My attentions seem to be scattering themselves.”

“You did come a long way,” she replies, and pauses, turning to face him once more. When next she speaks, her voice is softer. “Thank you, for the record. For doing that. Coming.” Hien’s smile widens.

“I said I would come,” he says with gentle conviction. “T’was a promise, yes?” Odzaya shrugs.

“Crossing an ocean is a long way for a promise, especially for a king with a country.”

“I could not well leave my khagun to do battle alone,” he half-jests. “A small difference we ultimately made, but it was a difference, still. And it was the least I could do for what _you_ did for me and mine. And what you have done now.”

It is practically _nothing_ , for all that she has done for him. A hundred years he could spend in attempt to repay her, and he fears he would still fall short. It says something, he thinks, that he still wishes to try.

“Well, you have my gratitude,” Odzaya says, and lifts herself briefly onto her toes, her head lowered just enough for her locced bangs to cover her eyes. A gesture of shyness, he inexplicably recognizes, having seen it last on the Steppe, when her family made such a fuss over her return to their midst. The realization brings that earlier inward smile to his face in full, blatant force before he can stop it.

“As you have mine,” he returns. Their gazes find one another again, and when she returns his smile, it is warmer than the sun on his face.

He dares to think he would cross another ten oceans, just to bask in its heat as he is now.

A hundred years. Ten oceans.

Small prices to pay for her eyes upon him.


End file.
